Mother Nature

In August 1978 I went to Warsaw to attend the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) Congress. This was my first visit abroad. I saw the above pictures in an in-flight, take-away, magazine kept in my hotel room. There was something about these pictures of the jungle that moved me greatly. Even now, I find it difficult to take my eyes away when I see them.

It was on 28 August 1838 that the owner of the large estate of the de Longueval-Buquoy family inscribed this passage in the founding charter of the protected natural territory with rich fir, spruce and beech growths:

This preserve, covering an area of 100 hectares is thus one of the oldest in Europe, and Count Jiri Frantisek Augustin inscribed his name in the history of the protection of Nature in Europe. [I have taken this statement from the write-up that accompanied the above pictures and the passage.]